Humble Boy

This multi-layered ‘Olivier Award’ winning play had a talented cast of six, and challenged us with themes of astro-physics, bee-keeping, and complex family and inter-personal relationships, whilst still being laugh-out-loud funny and extremely sad in up and down waves throughout. A play to make you think, wonderfully directed by Denise Hodgkiss.

An excellent programme was provided, honey-coloured, bee themed, right down to the excellent cast photos showing the participants in pairs reacting to an encroaching bee!  A lovely touch, very original. The Director’s piece set the scene and whetted our appetites, without giving anything away. A page on bees by the Guildford Beekeepers Association was a welcome addition.

The play is set in a garden throughout, and such a wonderful garden I could have sat there all night! Newspaper flowers, tastefully arranged in pots, a beautiful apple tree, complete with falling apples, a pretty tool shed, even a proper bark flower bed at the front – it was stunning! There was a mouthwatering jug of Pimms, a huge tureen for the gazpacho, an ominous hose, and a gift-wrapped wooden pot containing father’s ashes.

Cricket whites, a fair-isle tank top, and an oversized suit, suggested the complex character of our astrophysicist son. Stunning dresses, shoes and sunglasses for his self-obsessed mother. Normal casual garb for the ‘feet firmly on the ground’ young mother, all the costumes added to the characterisation very well. I was very pleased with the pretty costumes of the modest Mercy, a nice contrast to the immaculate designer wear of her adored friend and idol Flora.

Simmering family tensions; reflections on grief; passion in later life; growth through motherhood; loyalty unrewarded, all these themes were here, and wonderfully expressed in the writing of Charlotte Jones.

Obviously for a piece of such depth, one requires a great cast, and superb direction. This last was amply provided by Denise Hodgkiss. Having always wanted to direct this play, as she wrote in her Director’s notes, she made a marvellous job of it. Her cast were extremely well-balanced, each had their personal key moments, and they kept us involved, both emotionally and mentally (all that astrophysics and string theory, was it? Must look that up!) from start to finish.

Andy Roe as the wonderfully shambolic Felix was a tour de force. He certainly brought out the vulnerability of this clever but seemingly unloved, by his mother anyway, son. His intelligence emerged somewhat slowly, which kept us intrigued by him. He gradually became less woolly, more human, especially after his ex-girlfriend Rosie came back on the scene. A great piece of work from Roe to form this complex character so well for us.

Flora, his brittle, designer-clad, surgically enhanced mother was played well by Anna Twaits. The son she had never understood, and who almost seemed a kind of threat to her, with his cleverness and socially gauche ways, was met with a kind of indignant ‘how long is HE going to be here!’ reaction. Spiky Flora was the queen of the scathing put-down, not only to Felix, but also to Rosie, Mercy, and even George, her boyfriend. Her nose seemed to be permanently in the air. Nothing pleased her, nothing made her laugh.

George Pye, coach company owner, man of means – ‘Travel Pye if you want to fly!’, bouncy, enthusiastic, full of jolly humour, delighted with his ‘catch’, Flora, was played to perfection by Howard Benbrooke. Outwardly master of every situation, he had moments of vulnerability and depth of thought too.

Rosie, his daughter, Felix’s ex, now enters our gorgeous garden, to play havoc with Felix’s emotions, and drop the knowledge that he is the father of her 7 year old daughter. Rosie, played so well by Jenny Seddon, is the most grounded, real, mature person amongst this group. She is a perfect example of what I call ‘growth through motherhood’, and to see her eyes shine as she describes the delight with which she is watching her daughter flourish and develop, really touched my heart. The contrast between these two mothers, Flora and Rosie, is intense.

Mercy Lott, spinster, pillar of the local church, has one of the key moments in the play. Carol Gallacher mastered this role, building Mercy up from just a little body busying herself in the background, always helping out, always getting in the way, coming in for many an acerbic comment from Flora, the ‘friend’ she adores, yet always observing, taking everything in. At the family al fresco dinner, where the aim is reconciliation, Mercy’s attempt to say Grace becomes a Sir Humphrey like rant revealing both her and everyone else’s confusion and irritation. This earned a round of enthusiastic audience applause. It was very, very funny, but very sad at the same time.

Throughout the play Jim, the gentle gardener, breezes on and off the stage, soothing Felix’s troubled brow, discussing bee-keeping, gardening and physics with him. Steve Alais plays this role with a gentle voice, quietly busy, calm, informative, peaceful. Not only Felix welcomes his entrances after all the crazy emotional sniping of the previous scenes, but we the audience do too. How restful, to be able to focus on bees, flowers, scent and all, just for a short while before it all kicks off again! The fact that Jim is later revealed to be the ghost of Felix’s father is an added twist to the narrative.

I have maybe gone overboard in delineating the characters and describing the interaction between them in this review. But only a superb cast and a brilliant director could have made these so clear, could have made us laugh and cry in equal measure. Unforgettable!

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